My first guitar is a Fender Standard Strat HSS I got in Nov. 2006. I replaced the pickups with DiMarzio Evolution pups and refretted it with jumbo frets. The fretwork on the original was horrible. Jumbo frets are tough to work with, and I wound up with some very low frets when I was finished. I use it as a slide guitar nowadays.

My first amp is the Behringer, which I also got in Nov. 2006, and it has worked well for me since then.

I got the Fender Champ 600 a little later. The Behringer has a mic input and 2 channels, which has worked well for me. I have had to use contact cleaner to keep the switches clean. I got a Rocktron cab for the Behringer, and it has also worked well for me.

I have built one guitar from scratch, and IMHO it is my best axe.

I put Fender Fat 50's pickups in it, with jumbo frets. It has a Padouk neck with an Ebony fretboard and a 2 piece Maple body. I got the Padouk because it is red, I wanted a redneck guitar!

I wanted a guitar with a soapbar pickup, but couldn't find one for sale that didn't have what, IMHO, was a ridiculous price, so I bought a scratch and dent Epi Les Paul Jr, pulled the pup and bought a Seymour Duncan Jazzmaster pup for it. I also put in some Schaller tuners.

I got a "Music Rising" Epi Les Paul. It was grossly overpriced, but the model was produced to generate revenue to help musicians replace instruments lost in hurricane Katrina. It sounds OK. I haven't changed anything it in. I guess I'm not much of a Gibson fan. More partial to the Fender sound I suppose!

I couldn't resist buying a fauxbro I saw in a music shop. Fauxbros are fake dobros made pre WWII. Apparently one company had a patent on the dobro, and they were fairly expensive, so people who wanted to play the blues on a dobro but couldn't afford one bought a fauxbro. A company well known for making fauxbros was Regal, in Chicago, and they sold new for 10 to 15 dollars. The main difference between a dobro and a fauxbro is that a fauxbro does not have a resonator cone.